“Everyone knows that planet earth rotates from west to east, causing the sun to rise in the eastern sky and to set in the western horizon. Interestingly, ancient Egyptian priests told the Greek historian Herodotus that within the historical ages since Egypt became a kingdom, “four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to his wont; twice he rose where he now sets, and twice he set where he now rises” (Herodotus, Bk.II, 142).”

“The Ethiopians were the first who invented the science of stars, and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians.” The Ethiopian origin of astronomy is beautifully explained by Count Volney in a passage in his Ruins of Empires, which is one of the glories of modern literature, and his argument is not based on guesses. He invokes the weighty authority of Charles F. Dupuis, whose three monumental works, The Origin of Constellations, The Origin of Worship and The Chronological Zodiac, are marvels of meticulous research. Dupuis placed the origin of the zodiac as far back as 15,000 B.C., which would give the world’s oldest picture book an antiquity of 17,000 years. (This estimate is not as excessive as it might at first appear, since the American astronomer and mathematician, Professor Arthur M. Harding, traces back the origin of the zodiac to about 26,000 B.C) In discussing star worship and idolatry, Volney gives the following glowing description of the scientific achievements of the ancient Ethiopians, and of how they mapped out the signs of the zodiac on the star-spangled dome of the heavens:

Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization Part 2
By John G. Jackson (1939)

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Genesis 5:23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years5:24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

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Much of Biblical prophecy seems to be based on a 360 day year, but as we all know, the solar year is 365.25 days in length. Was the original calendar a solar calendar, and was the original year precisely 360 days in length. The Ethiopian inherited from Enoch.

If we notice the statement regarding the length of the months during the Noachian deluge. We read in Genesis 7:11, “in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heaven were opened” (Gen.7:11). Then we read: “At the end of one hundred fifty days the waters had abated; and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (Gen.8:3-4). The Flood lasted five months, to the very day, and those five months equaled 150 days. Simple division shows us that therefore 5 months of 150 days each gives 30 days per month. Therefore, 12 months would have been precisely 360 days! each month having 30 days like that of the today’s Ethiopian Enochian calandar.

The Ethiopian Enoch made a calendar of 360 days per year which is still practiced in Ethiopia. The Book of Enoch was taken to Europe by James Bruce was publicized around 1790 A.D.

The earliest known date is 4236 B.C.E., the founding of the Egyptian calendar. The ancient Egyptian calendar was lunar. The Ecnochian Ethiopian calendar, oldest in history, originated three millennia before the birth of Christ. It is believed thatImhotep, the supreme official of King Djoser C.2670 B.C. had a great impact on the construction of the calendar. Egyptians initially used a civil calendar based on a solar year that consisted of 360 days only, without making any adjustment for the additional quarter of a day each year. Each year had 12 months. The heliacal rising of Sirius coincides with the arrival of the highest point of river Nile flood at Memphis marking the first day of the year. The new year of the ancient Egyptians started on Meskerem 1 that of Nisan of Hebrews comming out of Egypt. This date is an Ethiopian new year signaling the end of Noah’s flood. (The Hebrew new years also start in Meskerem. The Egyptian solar calendar consisted of 12 30-day months with five extra festival days at the end of the year.

The connection between Egypt and Ethiopia from at least as early as the Twenty-second Dynasty was very intimate and occasionally the two countries were under the same ruler, so that the arts and civilization of the one naturally found their way into the other.

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“Should it be asked at what epoch this system took its birth, we shall answer on the testimony of the monuments of astronomy itself, that its principles appear with certainty to have been established about seventeen thousand years ago, and if it be asked to what people it is to be attributed, we shall answer that the same monuments, supported by unanimous traditions, attribute it to the first tribes of Egypt; and reason finds in that country all the circumstances which could lead to such a system; when it finds there a zone of sky, bordering on the tropic, equally free from the rains of the equator and the fogs of the north; when it finds there a central point of the sphere of the ancients, a salubrious climate, a great but manageable river, a soil fertile without art or labor, inundated without morbid exhalations, and placed between two seas which communicate with the richest countries; it conceives that the inhabitant of the Nile, addicted to agriculture from the facility of communications, to astronomy from the state of his sky, always open to observation, must have been the first to pass from the savage to the social state; and consequently to attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life.

It was, then, on the borders of the upper Nile, among a black race of men, that was organized the complicated system of the worship of the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labors of agriculture. â€¦ Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes named stars ofinundation, or Aquarius, those stars under which the Nile began to overflow;stars of the ox or bull, those under which they began to plow, stars of the lion, those under which that animal, driven from the desert by thirst, appeared on the banks of the Nile; stars of the sheaf, or of the harvest virgin, those of the reaping season; stars of the lamb, stars of the two kids, those under which these precious animals were brought forth. Thus the same Ethiopian having observed that the return of the inundation always corresponded with the rising of a beautiful star which appeared towards the source of the Nile, and seemed to warn the husbandman against the coming waters, he compared this action to that of the animal who, by his barking, gives notice of danger, and he called this star the dog, the barker (Sirius). In the same manner he named the stars of the crab, those where the sun, having arrived at the tropic, retreated by a slow retrograde motion like the crab of Cancer. He named stars of the wild goat, or Capricorn, those where the sun, having reached the highest point in his annuary tract, â€¦ imitates the goat, who delights to climb to the summit of the rocks. He named stars of the balance, or Libra, those where the days and nights being equal, seemed in equilibrium, like that instrument; and stars of the scorpion, those where certain periodical winds bring vapors, burning like the venom of the scorpion. (Volney’s Ruins of Empires, pp. 120-122, New York, 1926)

The Book of Enoch was dropped from the Jewish scriptures shortly after Christ, most likely because it apparently referred to him as the Messiah. It was quoted as scripture by the early Christian Church fathers until the middle of the third century A.D., accepted as a divine work having been written by Enoch himself.[5] It then fell into disrepute and was banned from the canon of scripture in the fourth century, partly because it didn’t agree with how Christianity came to be redefined after the death of the apostles.

The book also doubtlessly raised questions with its unusual imagery, referring to things such as “the stone which supports the corners of the earth” and “the four winds, which bear up the earth” (Enoch 18:2 {18:2-3}). That may have sounded primitive to the sophisticated science of the fourth century, but that is the same imagery used by many great prophets. For example, John the Revelator states, “I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth” (Rev. 7:1; compare imagery of Isa. 11:12, Jer. 49:36, Ezek. 37:9, Dan. 7:2, Mat. 24:31). As is discussed later in this article, often what appears to be primitive science in the scriptures turns out to be the sophisticated concepts of God simplified for us. Note that the prophets have 100% chance of success when predicting the weather, so those angels may have more to do with the wind than we might suppose.

Thus, for a variety of reasons, the Book of Enoch was systematically purged from the scriptures until it became a “lost book” of the Bible. In 1773 the famous explorer James Bruce discovered it in Ethiopia (then called Abyssinia), and brought back three copies. Fortunately, the Ethiopians had kept it in their Bible, where it was located immediately after the Book of Job.

(John P. Pratt)

The Book of Enoch the Prophet is the oldest known, existing mystical document and is referred to in the Hebrew Zohar, The Epistle of St. Jude, and other ancient books. Legend dates the text to antediluvian times, saved from the flood by Noah himself, while serious scholarship places its origin in the secondcentury b.c.e., as old as ancient Sumeria and Babylon. Providing insight into the foundation of Christianity and the pre-Christian Gnostics, the text is perhaps most remarkable for its significant deviation from the apocryphal story that appears in the Bible. The final Christian version of the apocalypse leaves the damned on a hellish earth, while welcoming the chosen to heaven. The Book of Enoch the Prophet draws a very different picture–“upon the return of the Messiah, evil will be banished from the face of the earth, resulting in a heaven on earth.A new introduction to this edition by esoteric scholar R.A. Gilbert places the book in context, including an overview of the modern history of The Book of Enoch. It’s an Indiana Jones-like story: lost for thousands of years after being banned by the early Christians, the ancient manuscript was rediscovered in the late eighteenth century. This sparked research for other fragments, which were subsequently found and together revealed the complete ancient text, first translated into English and published in 1821. “A new introduction makes this most-important non-Biblical apocryphal text accessible to modern readers. “Reveals a vision of a new age of heaven on earth that figures in esoteric and occult practices. “Banned by the Christian hierarchy and thought lost for millennia.R H Charles The Book of Enoch the Prophet

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The four winds was the four magnetic forces that suspends the earth around the Sun “the stone which supports the corners of the earth” and “the four winds, which bear up the earth” (Enoch 18:2 {18:2-3}).

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Immanuel Velikovsky, a phenomenal Jewish scholar and historian, and friend of Albert Einstein, wrote dramatically of this period, when Israel came out of Egypt, and stood before God Himself atMount Sinai:

“The Talmud and Midrashim describe the Mountain of the Law-giving

as quaking so greatly that it appeared as if it were lifted up and shaken

Joshua10:11 wrote At that same time, “the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,, till the people had revenge upon their enemies” (verse 13).
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-prt5d6m6s

“In the tomb of Senmut, the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on the ceiling shows the celestial sphere with the signs of the Zodiac and other constellations in ‘a reversed orientation’ of the southern sky,” says Immanuel Velikovsky (p.108)

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiFD8pM4Mcs

At that very time, according to the book of Exodus, God instituted a NEW calendar for His people! We read in Exodus 12, when God instituted the Passover celebration for His people: ‘Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, ‘This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you” (Exo.12:1-2).

Prior to that time, from the time of Adam and Eve and Creation, the years had been counted from fall to fall reckoning. But now God introduced a NEW calendar! In this calendar, each month began with a new moon, and the year began in the SPRING! Being a luni-solar calendar, since the new moon appears every 29.5 days, the months varied between 29 and 30 days, to adjust for the fraction of a day. The 12 month year varied from a minimum of 354 days, to a maximum of 385 days – as in a leap year when an extra month had to be inserted (seven years during every 19-year time cycle, to make the total lunar years equal to the solar years in every 19 years).

Judging from the evidence, this change was necessitated due to the change in the earth’s orbit around the sun at the time of the Exodus! The earth “fell down,” i.e. its orbit changed, and hasn’t changed back to the original orbit since that time!

The length of the year changed from 360 days, to the modern calendar’s 365.25 days, in a solar year. Apparently the orbit of the moon also changed, from a 30 day orbit to one of 29.5 days. All this caused a need to change the calendar!

“Numerous evidences are preserved which prove that prior to the year of 365 ¼ days, the year was only 360 days long” . In ancient India, “The texts of the Veda period know a year of only 360 days.” Passages in which this length of year are clearly stated are found in all the Brahmanas. Those texts nowhere mention an intercalary period of five extra days which are currently part of the solar year. This Hindu year of 360 days is divided into twelve months of thirty days each. The texts describe the moon as crescent for fifteen days and waning for another fifteen days; they also say that the sun moved for six months or 180 days to the north and for the same number of days to the south” .

In their astronomical works, the Brahmans used “very ingenious geometric methods,” Velikovsky states, and so their apparent “failure” to discern that the year of 360 days was 5 ¼ days too short seemed baffling to western historians. Their perplexity fails to account for the fact that the terrestrial year may have once been 360 days.

In the ancient Persian calendar, “The ancient Persian year was composed of 360 days or twelve months of thirty days each. In the seventh century [B.C.] five Gatha days were added to the calendar,” Velikovsky continues (p.332).

The old Babylonian year was also 360 days. Ctesias wrote that the walls of Babylon were 360 furlongs in compass, “as many as there had been days in the year” (quoted on page 333). The Babylonians divided the heavens into 36 decans, a decan being the space the sun moved relative to the fixed stars in a 10-day period. 36 decans in a year would make a year of 360 days – no more, no less.

Historians realize that at first the Babylonians recognized a year of 360 days, “and the division of a circle into 360 degrees must have indicated the path traversed by the sun each day in its assumed circling of the earth” (Cantor, Vorlesungen uber Geschichte der Mathematik, I, 92, )

The ancient Assyrians also had a 360 day year with each month containing 30 days. Assyrian documents refer to months of 30 days each, only, and count the months from the moon’s crescent to crescent. These facts all puzzle astronomers who cannot understand why all these ancient civilizations were so consistently erroneous in their calculation of the months and the year.

The ancient Mayansalso had a year of 360 days, in remote antiquity. The Mexicans, at the time of the conquest, called a thirty-day period a moon, even though they knew that the moon’s synodical period is 29.5209 days. Their calculations were even more accurate than the Gregorian calendar. “Obviously, they adhered to an old tradition dating from the time when the year had twelve months of thirty days each, 360 days in all” (p.339).

The ancient China the people had a year divided into twelve months of 30 days each, comprising a 360 day year. “A relic of the system of 360 days is the still persisting division of the sphere into 360 degrees; each degree represented the diurnal advance of the earth on its orbit, or that portion of the zodiac which was passed over from one night to the next. After 360 changes the stellar sky returned to the same position for the observer on the earth” . After the year changed from 360 days to 365 ¼, the Chinese added 5 ¼ days to their year Like that of the the Enochaian Ethiopian Caledar of today 5 and 6 days each lip year. Suffice it to say, the 360 day year is well attested to in ancient history.

The 360-day usage in calculating Biblical prophecy, therefore, seems to be a carry-over from the ancient world and its times and seasons, prior to the shift and alteration in the calendar which occurred during the time of Moses and the Exodus.

Why did the world and the Jews use solar months instead of lunar months prior to the Exodus? Hints that this was so are indicated in the books of Jubilees and Enoch, extra-canonical ancient Jewish literature.

As Dr. Velikovsky demonstrates, great changes occurred in the cosmos at the time of the Exodus, which necessitated a change. If the original solar calendar was a 360-day calendar, with 30 day lunar months, then it would be true that “Adam [also] used lunar monthsand that this continued throughout the time of the patriarchs,” as Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer says. Declares aish.com, “However, as we have shown, there are many sources that say that solar months were used before the Exodus”(ibid.). How could this have been true if the solar year differed from the lunar year? Such a practice would have caused disruption in the months and annual holy days. The book of Jubilees shows that the annual holy days, which depend on the new moons, were observed during the times of Noah, Abraham, and the patriarchs!The Bible itself uses the 360 day year in calculating the “prophetic years” in prophecy. A 360-day year is called a “prophetic year” by students of Bible prophecy.

As many Scriptural commentators have pointed out years ago, a “time” equals a “year” in prophetic fulfillment. In the book of Revelation, we find “the woman” – a reference to the Church of God – is to be protected “in the wilderness” for “1260 days” (Rev.12:6). Later on in the same chapter, we read that the woman is to be protected in the wilderness for “a time, times, and half a time” – three and one half “times” (Rev.12:14). Thus 1260 days equals 3 ½ times. Simple division shows us that dividing 1260 days by 3 ½, gives us 360 days in a “time.” This implies that a “year” in prophecy calculations refers to a period of 360 days – yet the real year today is 365.25 days in length. Why this anomaly? This seems very strange. What mystery lies at the root of this question?

Why, then, does the Bible use the 360-day calendar, where 1260 days equals 3 ½ years (Rev.12:6, 14), which also equals 42 months (Rev.13:5)? The Bible speaks of no other year existing before the 360 day calendar of the Flood (derived from 5 months equaling 150 days, or 30 days per month, as in the 360-day year).

My own belief is that the 360 day year is the “original” year, which existed from Adam to the Flood and possibly to the Exodus, when God instituted a NEW calendar (Exo.12:1), due to phenomenal changes in the earth’s orbit caused by the awesome plagues which fell upon Egypt at the Exodus – when many miracles occurred, and God Himself came down to Mount Sinai. This original calendar will be re-instituted when the Messiah returns and “restores all things.” The knowledge of this original 360-day “year” was preserved and used in the prophetic writings, as a reminder that it is important and ought to be remembered. So we use it as the “idealized” year when calculating prophecies, and ignore the fractions and complexities of the temporary “present” Roman calendar.

A “prophetic year” contains 360 days, apparently based on the fact that the original “year” was 360 days in length. Evidence that the year was once 360 days in length is found in many places, as we have seen.

The Mayan Calendar

Like the ancient calender of Noah’s time, the Mayan calendar also has 360 days in a year. It also dates to a time before the Noachian deluge.

According to the Mayan calendar, we are now living in the Mayan “end times.” The Great Cycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar ends at the winter solstice in 2012 A.D., less than eight years from now.

In Mayan mythology, the winter solstice sun corresponds to the deity known as One Hunahpu, or “First Father.” The dark rift of the Milky Way, in Mayan cosmology, is known as the “Black Road,” the mouth of the Cosmic Monster, and the birth canal of the Cosmic Mother.

The Mayan calendar has a Great Cycle, ending 13 “bactuns” or a period of 5,125 years. To the ancient Mayans, this conjunction of the sun and Milky Way center or mid-point will occur on the winter solstice, December 21, in 2012 A.D. This date represents a major transition point, the creation of a new World Age.

The Mayan Long Count calendar is strikingly different from the Roman calendar, or any other for that matter. A “month” is 20 days, and 18 months is a year of 360 days. Twenty 360 day years comprise a “katun,” and a “baktun” is 20 katun, equaling 144,000 days.

The number 144,000 is very interesting, as it is the number of the “firstfruits” redeemed to God at the coming of the Messiah (Rev.14:1-4).

Authorities agree that the Mayan Long Count calendar began August 11, 3114 B.C. (Gregorian calendar). Why it begins at this date is anybody’s guess. This would have been during the life of the prophet Enoch, who was born in 3545 B.C. He lived for 365 years before he “was taken,” in 3180 B.C. Methuselah was born in 3480 B.C. and lived for 969 years. So the Mayan calendar begins 76 years after Enoch disappeared (was taken to a place of safety from his many enemies), and 376 years after Methuselah was born.

The present Great Age of the Mayas, the fifth, is believed to have been initiated by the famous Quetzalcoatl in 3,113 B.C. Who was this figure? Could it have been no less than Enoch the prophet, himself?

Quetzalcoatl was the “plumed serpent” of the Aztec mythology, the “god” of learning and of the priesthood. He was an ancient ruler who was subsequently deified and identified with the planet Venus – the morning and evening star – and as a “god” of vegetation. He was a benign figure, a teacher, and his name became the title for Mexican high priests. The name became frequent in early Mexican history, like Roosevelt or Adams. There are many traditions about his arrival, and departure. He taught the way of peace. He was noted as “the bringer of civilization and good ways of life, who was frequently locked in conflict with gods of evil” (The Indian Heritage of America, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., p.201). Aztec legends say he sailed across the sea, but would one day return.

The patriarch Enoch was also a priestly figure before the Flood, and a man of vast learning and understanding.

Immanuel Velikovsky points out that during the time of Quetzalcoatl, according to ancient Mexican records, many people died, that “the sun refused to show itself and during four days the world was deprived of light” (quoting Brasseur; see Worlds in Collision, page 157). At that time, according to legends from Polynesian peoples, “the earth was battered by countless fragments,” says Velikovsky (p.160).

During that time the sequence of seasons and the duration of days and nights became disarranged.

Says Velikovsky, “When Quetzal-cohuatl, the lawgiver of the Toltecs, disappeared on the approach of a great catastrophe and the Morning Star that bore the same name rose for the first time in the sky, the Toltecs ‘regulated the reckoning of the days, the nights, and the hours according to the difference in time’” (p.177). Thus when the original Quetzal-cohuatl lived there was a great catastrophe on the earth.

Could this be why God “took” Enoch, and he “was not found”? (Gen.5:24). God “took” him to a place of safety, to protect him from the oncoming cataclysm, which was brought about during his time by the wickedness of mankind! Likewise, God promises to protect His faithful servants during this present age who are zealous for Him and loyal to His truth (Rev.3:10; Luke 21:36; Rev.12:14-17).

In Mayan chronology, 3,113 B.C. is written as 13.0.0.0.0. When the cycle or age is complete, in December 2012 A.D., the date will once again be written 13.0.0.0.0 – a complete cycle of 13 baktuns. That date will also complete the end of a katun cycle (of 20 years). The last katun of this Age began in 1992 and will finish in 2012. The Mayan “glyph” of this katun is “storm” followed by “sun” – a period of darkness, followed by one of light.

Note that in esoteric tradition, the number “13” represents Christ, the Messiah! There were twelve disciples; Jesus as the Christ was “13.” The number “13” also denotes superabundance – the “baker’s dozen.”

Is there any significance to this? The Mayan calendar is obviously pre-Flood because it is based on a 360-day year which was pre-Flood. Enoch was a scribe of the Lord, who wrote the book of Enoch, which contains much celestial and calendrical material, as well as prophetic warnings and exhortations. It may well be that the Mayan calendar was originally inspired and contains material going back to the pre-Flood patriarchs.

The Long Count calendar began in 3114 B.C. – during the time of Enoch – and its termination date is 2012 A.D., when the cycle will be completed, and a new cycle begins. This fact certainly seems to be significant when weighed with all the Biblical evidence regarding the prophecies of the “End of Days.”

The origins of the Mayan calendar are obscured by the mists of time. The Mayas themselves were adept skywatchers. Their classical period is thought to be from 200-900 A.D. However, large ruins with Mayan features have been found dating back to before the time of Christ, before the present era began. The Mayans attributed the origin of their incredibly complex calendar system to a people who existed before them, whose origin was lost in the dim past.

Researchers believe that the Mayan calendar actually hinges upon its calculated end point. What is so important about the winter solstice of 2012? The Milky Way seems to have played an important part in Mayan mythology. The Mayan Sacred Tree appears to be the crossing point of the sun’s path, the ecliptic, with the Milky Way. The conjunction of the sun with the Milky Way at the winter solstice in 2012 A.D. appears to have had apocalyptic significance. The crossing of the Milky Way with the ecliptic represents a doorway – pointing both to the sacred source and origin – the finishing of the old and the beginning of a new birth. Thus the world, in 2012, is pictured as being at a celestial “crossroads.”To the Mesoamerican Mayas, the approach of the end of a World Age – the time when the winter solstice “Doorway” opened up the Sacred Tree to the Center of the Milky Way and the Heart of the Sky – was a very significant and epochal time. The Mayan Long Count was also known to the Yucatan Maya as a “prophecy cycle.”

Students of the Mayan calendar see this as confirmation that we are indeed living in the twilight of this present age and approaching the beginning of a New Age – the end of one prophetic cycle and the beginning of a new cycle. The Mayans stated that “time would collapse” at the end of their calendar cycle.

The “collapsing of time” is a mysterious phrase. How would time itself “collapse”? This could refer to ANOTHER GREAT CHANGE IN THE CALENDAR ITSELF!